Playing around with ChatGPT

Like many others, I've been playing around with ChatGPT, mainly to check its capacity to "understand" complex written instructions. Sharing below some experiments.

1. STORY TELLING

Me: Tell me a story with around 3000 characters about a flower who wanted to be a boy.

ChatGPT: Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a beautiful flower named Rose. Rose had long, flowing petals that were the most vibrant shade of red. She was the envy of all the other flowers in the garden, but despite her beauty, Rose was not happy.

You see, Rose had always dreamed of being a boy. She didn't understand why she had been born a flower, when all she wanted was to run and play like the boys did. She watched them with longing as they chased each other around the garden, laughing and having fun.

One day, Rose decided that she was going to make her dream come true. She gathered all her strength and pulled her petals off one by one, until she was just a small, bare stem. She felt a sense of liberation as she threw her petals aside and began to run and play like the boys did.

At first, the other flowers were shocked to see Rose running around without her petals. But as they saw how happy she was, they began to accept her for who she was. Rose was finally able to be herself, and she enjoyed every moment of her new life as a boy.

She played and laughed with the other boys, and even started to grow small, green leaves where her petals used to be. She was no longer a flower, but she was finally happy.

And so, Rose lived happily ever after, no longer wanting to be anything other than herself. She had learned that true happiness came from being true to oneself, no matter what anyone else thought.

Me: Update this story to have a dark end but still leaving some space for hope.

ChatGPT: Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a beautiful flower named Rose. Rose had long, flowing petals that were the most vibrant shade of red. She was the envy of all the other flowers in the garden, but despite her beauty, Rose was not happy.

You see, Rose had always dreamed of being a boy. She didn't understand why she had been born a flower, when all she wanted was to run and play like the boys did. She watched them with longing as they chased each other around the garden, laughing and having fun.

One day, Rose decided that she was going to make her dream come true. She gathered all her strength and pulled her petals off one by one, until she was just a small, bare stem. She felt a sense of liberation as she threw her petals aside and began to run and play like the boys did.

At first, the other flowers were shocked to see Rose running around without her petals. But as they saw how happy she was, they began to accept her for who she was. Rose was finally able to be herself, and she enjoyed every moment of her new life as a boy.

However, as the seasons changed and the weather grew colder, Rose began to wither and die. She had given up her petals, the very source of her life and beauty, in order to fulfill her dream. Despite her happiness, she could not survive without them.

The other flowers tried to help her, but it was too late. Rose withered away until there was nothing left but a dry, lifeless stem. She had sacrificed everything for her dream, but in the end, it had only led to her destruction.

But even as Rose's life came to an end, a tiny seed was left behind, hidden among the soil. It was the seed of a new flower, one that would someday grow and bloom, and maybe, just maybe, find a way to be true to itself without losing its beauty and its life.

Me: Now, summarize this story in about 500 characters.

ChatGPT: Once upon a time there was a flower named Rose. She had always dreamed of being a boy. One day, Rose decided that she was going to make her dream come true. She gathered all her strength and pulled her petals off one by one, until she was just a small, bare stem. At first, the other flowers were shocked to see Rose running around without her petals. But they began to accept her for who she was. However, as the seasons, Rose began to wither and die. She had given up her petals, the very source of her life and beauty, in order to fulfill her dream. Despite her happiness, she could not survive without them. But even as Rose's life came to a seed of a new flower, one that would someday grow and bloom, and maybe, just maybe, find a way to be true to itself without losing its beauty and its life.

Comments

ChatGPT was able to understand the requests except the text length part. The first two outputs are only half the requested size.

2. UNDERSTANDING SHAPES

It looks like that the request was understood, despite the poor English :)

3. MORE ON STORY TELLING

Me: Please complete the follow sentence. You can choose from your data samples. Consider fairies, aliens and talking houses. The text shall finish with an unexpected twist. The sentence for you is: Once upon a time, there was a bright princess on land of the...

ChatGPT: Once upon a time, there was a bright princess on the land of the fairies, who lived in a beautiful castle surrounded by talking houses and magical creatures. She spent her days exploring the enchanted forests and meadows that surrounded her home, and she was always on the lookout for adventure. One day, while she was out walking in the forest, she came across a group of aliens who had landed on her planet. She was fascinated by these strange and wonderful creatures, and she spent hours talking with them and learning about their world. However, little did she know that the aliens had a sinister plan in mind. They revealed to her that they had been sent to her planet to enslave the fairies and take over their land, and they offered her a choice: join them in their plan, or be destroyed along with the rest of her kind. The princess was horrified by their proposal, and she knew that she had to act quickly to save her people from the alien threat. She gathered her courage and stood up to the aliens, using her magical powers to drive them away from her planet and protect her home. Despite the danger she faced, the princess emerged victorious, and she was hailed as a hero by the grateful fairies.

Me: Please complete the follow sentence. You can choose from your data samples. Consider fairies, aliens and talking houses. The text shall finish with an unexpected twist that makes a paradox with the beginning of the text. The sentence for you is: Once upon a time, there was a bright princess on land of the...

ChatGPT: Once upon a time, there was a bright princess on the land of the fairies, who lived in a beautiful castle surrounded by talking houses and magical creatures. She spent her days exploring the enchanted forests and meadows that surrounded her home, and she was always on the lookout for adventure. But little did she know that her seemingly idyllic life was about to take a dark turn. One day, while she was out walking in the forest, she came across a group of aliens who had landed on her planet. She was fascinated by these strange and wonderful creatures, and she spent hours talking with them and learning about their world. However, the aliens revealed to her that they had come to her planet on a mission of destruction. They told her that they had been sent to destroy the fairies and take over their land, and they offered her a choice: join them in their plan, or be destroyed along with the rest of her kind. The princess was horrified by their proposal, and she knew that she had to act quickly to save her people from the alien threat. She gathered her courage and stood up to the aliens, using her magical powers to drive them away from her planet and protect her home. But as she stood victorious over the vanquished aliens, she realized that her home was no longer the peaceful and idyllic place it once was. The war with the aliens had changed her and her people forever, and she knew that they would never be able to go back to the way things were before. Despite her victory, the princess felt a deep sense of loss and sorrow, knowing that the fairies' world would never be the same again.

Comments

ChatGPT had a fair understanding the requests. It is quite interesting how the twists in the request were handled. I was wondering what would come of asking a paradox. Not bad, even if the result isn't really a paradox.

Other experiments included placing requests in different languages, like Portuguese, French and German. The replies were done in the same language of the request. Responses were made in the same language as the request. In one case, I mixed several languages in the same sentence I got a reply in one of the languages. Then, I asked to translate into Portuguese. The results were as expected.

In another experience, I told ChatGPT that I wanted to get rich. I received as an answer that many want to be rich and that this requires method and not giving up, among other commonplaces. So I mentioned that, and asked if it could be more explicit. I got what we could classify as a recipe, step by step, but still building on the previous answer. At this point, I wanted to see how it would react by twisting the conversation. I typed "I see that for you, being rich is having money". And I got a response about it being commonplace indeed, but for many people wealth can be spiritual and health. Not so bad.

But was it able to understand that I played a trick on it? I asked "Can you do an introspection of this conversation?" The answer I got was ChatGPT-by-the-book, which means the answer was about ChatGPT being a big language model, trained by OpenAI, and having no opinions.

Of course, that wasn't the answer I was hoping for. I insisted saying "You don't need to have an opinion. You can look at my questions and realize that I twisted the conversation". This time it worked. ChatGPT told me that I conducted the conversation in a way that, at first, was focused on being rich, but then I introduced a variant on other meanings of being rich. In fact, ChatGPT did not issue an opinion, it only summarized the conversation. I think this is acceptable when asking for introspection.

Overall, the interaction has been interesting. Sometimes, I got the impression that I was talking with HAL, the sentient computer from the novel "2001: A Space Odyssey". Except that ChatGPT didn't ask me "Will it hurt?" when I said I would end the session.